Thursday, 26 May 2016

The Tribe, Season 4 (2002)

Season three of The Tribe ended with the city under the control of the Mallrats' frenemy Ebony. She expels her rivals in the tribe but her apparent victory is cut short by the arrival of a new force of black-clad strangers, who come parachuting in from the air.

These newcomers are "The Technos", and at first they appear no more friendly than the recently-defeated Chosen. They abduct large numbers of people from the streets and aren't shy about using their superior weapons to drive off anyone who challenges them. When confronted by a city delegation though, their apparent leader insists they don't want to take over. They just needed to demonstrate their power to ensure they would be left alone to do their "work".

Most people in the city aren't too keen about this of course, and they are soon planning retaliation. Ebony on the other hand is an adaptable sort, and sees personal advantages in surreptitiously co-operating with the new arrivals. Of course, that's a potentially dangerous strategy, particularly if it turns out some of the Technos are people she has crossed in the past ... but what is the chance of that, right?

This season of the show is apparently somewhat controversial among the fandom. Many existing characters are jettisoned or reduced to occasional roles, while a whole host of newcomers - most but not all of them Technos - are introduced in their place. It also introduces lots of advanced technology, such as energy weapons and totally immersive virtual reality games. It's a bit like tuning into The Walking Dead one day to discover that the show's introduced a new faction that uses cybernetic battle harnesses to battle the zombie horde.

I'm not intrinsically opposed to the show's decision to reinvent itself, but the execution is - as is often the case with The Tribe - not terribly good. It delays rather too long in explaining what it is the Technos are actually after, and frankly said objective is a bit nonsensical.

The show would continue for another year after this, with decent ratings, but was was cancelled due to the creators feeling that their core cast were now too old for the whole "world without adults" concept to continue. I do own the remaining season, but I have already watched those discs, so the only review of it I will be doing is this: it's not as good as season four.